Starting from a re - evaluation of Otto Rank's famous essay Der Doppelganger, this paper provides several psychoanalytic and philosophical cefinitions of "The Double" and relates such definitions to the Shakespearian canon. Focusing on the affinity of psychic processes and rhetorical paradigms, the author proposes, in the light of the works of Freud, Lacan and Kristeva, a theoretical distinction between a "Semantic Double"(including rivalry, fusion, the erotic couple, androgyny, twins, ets. ) and a "Semiotic Double" (based on formal devices, symmetrical arrangements, poetic parallels, rhetorical figures etc. )Instances of "The Double" are shown to abound in the Comedies, Hamlet, Timon of Athens and Julius Caesar. "The Double" works in these plays, as well as in most, at the level of plot, character, rhetoric and style, promoting a uniquely Shakesperian"double enunciation". While taking into account the specific cultural differences between Shakespeare's times and Rank's or between Rank's and ours, "The Double" can be seen as a mechanism which defends against the desire to abolish the boundary between self and other. It is a powerful sign of the conflicting drives of eros and thanatos (as defined by Freud).56Narratives of "The Double" also dramatize the ambivalence in the response to early objects (as described by M. Klein). Lastly, but perhaps more importantly, "The Double" can he seen as a process which sustains mental and linguistic orders. In this respect it is an epistemic category closely related to the elaboration of identity and difference, to scapegoating and meaning creation, i. e. to linguistic and social codifications of "reality" (as indicated, inter alia, by R. Girard, L. Hielmslev and Derrida).
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